NAME

ExtUtils::MM_Unix - methods used by ExtUtils::MakeMaker

SYNOPSIS

require ExtUtils::MM_Unix;

DESCRIPTION

The methods provided by this package are designed to be used in conjunction with ExtUtils::MakeMaker. When MakeMaker writes a Makefile, it creates one or more objects that inherit their methods from a package MM. MM itself doesn't provide any methods, but it ISA ExtUtils::MM_Unix class. The inheritance tree of MM lets operating specific packages take the responsibility for all the methods provided by MM_Unix. We are trying to reduce the number of the necessary overrides by defining rather primitive operations within ExtUtils::MM_Unix.

If you are going to write a platform specific MM package, please try to limit the necessary overrides to primitive methods, and if it is not possible to do so, let's work out how to achieve that gain.

If you are overriding any of these methods in your Makefile.PL (in the MY class), please report that to the makemaker mailing list. We are trying to minimize the necessary method overrides and switch to data driven Makefile.PLs wherever possible. In the long run less methods will be overridable via the MY class.

METHODS

The following description of methods is still under development. Please refer to the code for not suitably documented sections and complain loudly to the makemaker mailing list.

Not all of the methods below are overridable in a Makefile.PL. Overridable methods are marked as (o). All methods are overridable by a platform specific MM_*.pm file (See ExtUtils::MM_VMS) and ExtUtils::MM_OS2).

Preloaded methods

canonpath

No physical check on the filesystem, but a logical cleanup of a path. On UNIX eliminated successive slashes and successive "/.".

catdir

Concatenate two or more directory names to form a complete path ending with a directory. But remove the trailing slash from the resulting string, because it doesn't look good, isn't necessary and confuses OS2. Of course, if this is the root directory, don't cut off the trailing slash :-)

catfile

Concatenate one or more directory names and a filename to form a complete path ending with a filename

curdir

Returns a string representing of the current directory. "." on UNIX.

rootdir

Returns a string representing of the root directory. "/" on UNIX.

updir

Returns a string representing of the parent directory. ".." on UNIX.

SelfLoaded methods

c_o (o)

Defines the suffix rules to compile different flavors of C files to object files.

cflags (o)

Does very much the same as the cflags script in the perl distribution. It doesn't return the whole compiler command line, but initializes all of its parts. The const_cccmd method then actually returns the definition of the CCCMD macro which uses these parts.

clean (o)

Defines the clean target.

const_cccmd (o)

Returns the full compiler call for C programs and stores the definition in CONST_CCCMD.

const_config (o)

Defines a couple of constants in the Makefile that are imported from %Config.

Takes an array of directories that need to exist and returns a Makefile entry for a .exists file in these directories. Returns nothing, if the entry has already been processed. We're helpless though, if the same directory comes as $(FOO) _and_ as "bar". Both of them get an entry, that's why we use "::".

dist (o)

Defines a lot of macros for distribution support.

dist_basics (o)

Defines the targets distclean, distcheck, skipcheck, manifest.

dist_ci (o)

Defines a check in target for RCS.

dist_core (o)

Defeines the targets dist, tardist, zipdist, uutardist, shdist

dist_dir (o)

Defines the scratch directory target that will hold the distribution before tar-ing (or shar-ing).

dist_test (o)

Defines a target that produces the distribution in the scratchdirectory, and runs 'perl Makefile.PL; make ;make test' in that subdirectory.

dlsyms (o)

Used by AIX and VMS to define DL_FUNCS and DL_VARS and write the *.exp files.

dynamic (o)

Defines the dynamic target.

dynamic_bs (o)

Defines targets for bootstrap files.

dynamic_lib (o)

Defines how to produce the *.so (or equivalent) files.

exescan

Deprecated method. Use libscan instead.

extliblist

Called by init_others, and calls ext ExtUtils::Liblist. See ExtUtils::Liblist for details.

file_name_is_absolute

Takes as argument a path and returns true, if it is an absolute path.

find_perl

Finds the executables PERL and FULLPERL

Methods to actually produce chunks of text for the Makefile

The methods here are called for each MakeMaker object in the order specified by @ExtUtils::MakeMaker::MM_Sections.

fixin

Inserts the sharpbang or equivalent magic number to a script

force (o)

Just writes FORCE:

guess_name

Guess the name of this package by examining the working directory's name. MakeMaker calls this only if the developer has not supplied a NAME attribute.

has_link_code

Returns true if C, XS, MYEXTLIB or similar objects exist within this object that need a compiler. Does not descend into subdirectories as needs_linking() does.

Takes a path to a file that is found by init_dirscan and returns false if we don't want to include this file in the library. Mainly used to exclude RCS, CVS, and SCCS directories from installation.

linkext (o)

Defines the linkext target which in turn defines the LINKTYPE.

lsdir

Takes as arguments a directory name and a regular expression. Returns all entries in the directory that match the regular expression.

macro (o)

Simple subroutine to insert the macros defined by the macro attribute into the Makefile.

makeaperl (o)

Called by staticmake. Defines how to write the Makefile to produce a static new perl.

By default the Makefile produced includes all the static extensions in the perl library. (Purified versions of library files, e.g., DynaLoader_pure_p1_c0_032.a are automatically ignored to avoid link errors.)

makefile (o)

Defines how to rewrite the Makefile.

manifypods (o)

Defines targets and routines to translate the pods into manpages and put them into the INST_* directories.

maybe_command

Returns true, if the argument is likely to be a command.

maybe_command_in_dirs

method under development. Not yet used. Ask Ilya :-)

needs_linking (o)

Does this module need linking? Looks into subdirectory objects (see also has_link_code())

nicetext

misnamed method (will have to be changed). The MM_Unix method just returns the argument without further processing.

On VMS used to insure that colons marking targets are preceded by space - most Unix Makes don't need this, but it's necessary under VMS to distinguish the target delimiter from a colon appearing as part of a filespec.

parse_version

parse a file and return what you think is $VERSION in this file set to

parse_abstract

parse a file and return what you think is the ABSTRACT

pasthru (o)

Defines the string that is passed to recursive make calls in subdirectories.

path

Takes no argument, returns the environment variable PATH as an array.

perl_script

Takes one argument, a file name, and returns the file name, if the argument is likely to be a perl script. On MM_Unix this is true for any ordinary, readable file.

perldepend (o)

Defines the dependency from all *.h files that come with the perl distribution.

Returns the attribute PERM_RW or the string 644. Used as the string that is passed to the chmod command to set the permissions for read/writeable files. MakeMaker chooses 644 because it has turned out in the past that relying on the umask provokes hard-to-track bugreports. When the return value is used by the perl function chmod, it is interpreted as an octal value.

perm_rwx (o)

Returns the attribute PERM_RWX or the string 755, i.e. the string that is passed to the chmod command to set the permissions for executable files. See also perl_rw.